The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1887-11-12
TEA DRINKING IN JAPAN.
Occasions of Elaborate Ceremony Among
the Higher Glasses.

the Higher Glasses.
Some letters recently received from
Japan from an American traveller who
IS having exceptional advantages for
becoming acquainted with the native
lie OF the country, give some very curl
Gus and interesting items about tea
drinking there. He SAYS ''tea thinking
IS the great feature ofJapan. 1t is not
only national taste, it is a social insti-
tuition. On the railroads tea is offered
hrst-class passengers at stations as
water is provided for them with US. In
travelling by private conveyance the
little roadside inns for accommodation
OF travellers are called-and are-tea-
houses; tea is about all they have to
offer. When you 20 into the shops they
bring you tea; it is part of the general
courteousness and courtliness OF their
way of doing even in petty trading.
But all this is merely incidental, quite
aside from the real business of tea
drinking. The tea you get in such
ways is, of course. generally inferior,
but the great difference when you come
to the regular tea-drinking is in more
than the quality of the tea. Every
house among the well-to-do-c classes has
an attachment tea house-not
erely room devoted to the beverage,
ut little detached house, and in these
Ttea-houses the social life of Japan is
carried on. 1t corresponds in way to
our club life Circles of friends meet
in them Omen only habitually, and
those that are especially devoted to these
festivities, or who frequent important
andinAuential tea-drinking circles, are
called tea men, just as we talk about
clubme The detachment of the tea
house from the rest of the house is a
necessary measure of privacy in a coun-
try where partitions are merely screens,
and privacy in the tea-house was impera-
tive at the time previous to the last
revolution, when the lighthouses were
The centers of political debate and
conspiracies. There are still many tea
houses where politics are the chief
theme, and there are others where art
and literature are the main interests to
the guests.
1.-The whole matter of tea-drinkino
on these occasions is full of elaborate
ceremony. Servants are dispensed
with, it being part of an entirely theo,
retical assumption of simplicity that the
host shall do every thing with his OWL
hands. The real origin Of the custom
is probably in that desire for privacy
before referred to. Unless japanese
servants are more tractable than ours
it would be a good deal easier to do i
all oneself than to teach them, for the
utmost punctiliousness is observed il
every detail. The water is heated over
charcoal, and there are definite ways o.
arranging it. I've seen book giving
forty different ways of doing that. Thu
kettle is put on with ceremony, after ;
definite model. The tea-house is always
ornamented with some work of art, ;
picture or a piece of writing for writ
ing is an art hcre) or potted plant
and as this is changed at each writing j
is part of the cvilities devolving upor
the guests to go up to this and admir-
it. Potted plants are u great thing
here. All sorts of things are dwarfe(
and grown in pots, and the shaping o
them is a sort of national fancy work
You know you often see in pictures Of
fans and screens queer-shaped plant
and pots. Well, all that business o
forcing and growing themin particula
ways is one of the burning artist
questions in Japan. Little girls ar
taught it, ladies practice it, and Their
are rival schools and cliques in the ar
and great artists eminent for success il
it, and lots of books about it.
"a feature of these entertainment
is, naturally enough, conversation
about celebrated tca-drinkers of tn
past poets. artists, and statesmen, an
often the very cups that they have use
figure in the festivities of generation
hundreds of years later. This is fel
to be delightful touch of sentimen
when it can be accomplished The
pour water under the boiling point o
their tea, and it has not the bitter fast
| ours has They drink it without sugar
J or are supposed to do so, but they cheat
, for they hand sweetmeats around wit
it, and the tea is drank through then
! as it were; but of course n great deal {
, it is drank without any saccharin
accompaniment. The choice tea is Il
t together different thing from any "
I know about 1t is made from yer
, young, carefully-chosen tca-leaves. an
! is only partially cured, and then in
, powdered form is made into a SON
thing more like Cruel than any thin
else as to form. 1t is very delicate an
seems to bring one very near to IL
plant in its first estate. "-Chtc0G
Times.
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